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“It’s not so bad,”I interrupted, smiling as Vi’s eyes met mine. “Being a third wheel, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, it's only three times a day usually, and we mostly text now.”

Her purse, resting between us between the seats, began to buzz. She dropped my hand to dig into it, pulling out her phone and silencing it before stowing it again.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” I asked.

“Nah, it’s just the bank. I’ll call them back later.”

“I’ve been getting them too,” Danny complained. “Dad had me as an emergency contact on some stuff, I guess? I don’t know what they want me to do about his unpaid credit card bills. Man is on the lam.”

“The lam?” My eyebrow rose. “He’s on the run?”

“Not like, from the cops,” Vi clarified. “But he skipped out when our mom got sick, and neither of us has seen him since.”

“That’s horrible,” I muttered. “Was she upset?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, it was… pretty rough for a while. We all hear the statistics, but you never think it’ll be your family. If Vi hadn’t stepped up, I think Mom would’ve lost the house.”

She sighed. “I’ll be sending him a fucking bill for all of it, cowardly dickbag.”

My stomach churned with anxiety thinking about Garrett’s self-imposed taxation on the club, my eyes finding the diamond as the teams switched, the Nightwalkers coming up to bat in their purple and silver uniforms.

Vi’s bag began to buzz again, and she blushed, reaching for her phone once more.

“Sorry. Let me just turn this off,” she said, a little frown on her face as she looked at the screen before connecting the call and putting the phone to her ear. “Kayl? Is everything okay?”

I didn’t need heightened hearing to make out Babydoll crying on the other end of the line, her words coming out in a choppy mess between sobs.

“Vi, the apartment’s flooded!” she gasped, having to take several deep breaths to calm down enough to keep speaking. “There’s water fucking everywhere!”

Vi cursed, Danny already standing to pull on their jacket. “I’ll go grab the car.”

“Okay,” Vi said to her sibling, waving them off to go grab the little red Mustang we’d piled into to carpool to the match at the far end of the parking lot, safe from there it could be dinged by careless drivers. “We’re coming, okay? Did you call maintenance?”

“Yes,” she wailed. “No one’s picking up!”

I stood, helping Vi into her jacket as she tried to placate her friend on the other end of the line. “I’ll call Dana,” I said to Vi in an undertone. “She’s close, she’ll go help.”

Vi squeezed my arm appreciatively, letting me lead her up the concrete steps.

“Hang on, Kayls, we’re coming. Help is on the way!”

As we pulled up to the curb in Danny’s Mustang—the car they’d rebuilt with Babydoll and her brother before she’d even begun racing—the scene outside of the apartment was best categorised as complete chaos.

They parked half a block up from the building, thanks to the firetrucks blocking the street parking. The carved black door leading to the five floors of walk-ups above The Drip hanging wide open as people came in and out quickly, leaving wet footprints on the dry sidewalk. Boxes, suitcases, large plastic bins, and just about anything they could manage to shove full of belongings waited on the curb alongside electronics and even houseplants. Whatever could be salvaged from the irrefutable deluge that was waiting just beyond the doorway.

Vi hopped out, slamming the door to elbow past the small, anxious crowd with Danny and me close behind, and took the stairs two at a time until she reached her floor.

Her groan drifted to us where we followed a couple of flights behind, delayed by several maintenance men with industrial fans going into a unit on the second floor.

A bright yellow suitcase had been set just outside the door that had to be Vi’s. I guessed that the benefit of her living situation was that she was fairly mobile—she didn’t have to worry about packing her things.

She left the door open, and water puddled in the seams of the cracked tile covering the landing.

“My shoes are ruined!” Kaylee wailed, her arms around Vi as she stood in a ludicrous pair of sparkly knee-high platforms over her sweatpants on the soaked carpet, the water making a little squishy noise with every shift of their weight.

“What the hell are those?” I asked, earning a dirty look from Vi.